Commission votes to contribute $14 million, land access to extend Bee Ridge Road. Hi Hat Ranch is the main beneficiary.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: April 11, 2025
Host: The stakes were high: Planning for 13,000 homes at buildout, the 10,000-acre Hi Hat Ranch is the biggest residential development ever in Sarasota County. After an investigative report by the Florida Trident revealed seemingly inappropriate communications between a former county commissioner on behalf of the developer and county staff, Sarasota County commissioners felt blindsided. In February, they suspended a 4-1 vote in January in which they agreed to provide road access to the development, and they scheduled a workshop on Wednesday. It took up nearly four hours, and we have the details.
Johannes Werner: To say it right away: All this looks just like a two-month hiccup in the years-long planning process for the mega-development. In a narrow 3-2 vote, the commissioners approved picking up a good chunk of the cost of building and widening roads that will serve future residents of Hi Hat Ranch. And they did agree to provide access through county-owned land for a road whose construction will be paid for by the developer.
The dissenting votes were from Tom Knight, the commissioner who has been critical of the deal in the past, and—more surprisingly—Commission Chair Joe Neunder.
Under the deal approved on Wednesday, Hi Hat will donate up to 24 acres to widen Fruitville Road, which runs along the northern edge of the development. That land is worth around $3.6 million, but the county would be on the hook for the actual widening work. As to widening Bee Ridge Road—the project further to the south that triggered the county staffers’ objections, the investigative report by the Florida Trident and Knight’s opposition—the developer and the county will split the cost of widening Bee Ridge from Bent Tree to Lorraine Road. That would cost the county an estimated $14 million. The developer agreed to pay for the widening of the Lorraine Road roundabout on Bee Ridge. That cost is a million dollars. And the developer will bear the complete cost of extending Bee Ridge from Lorraine to the entrance of Hi Hat. To make that project possible, the county will allow the use of its land near Rothenbach Park and a water treatment plant for the road that would lead to the heart of the new development.
Citing impacts on county operations, Sarasota County staffers objected last year to granting access to that land for the Bee Ridge extension, which prompted the intervention by a former county commissioner on behalf of the developer. This, in turn, triggered the Florida Trident’s investigative report. Then, in February, Commissioner Knight said he objected to the county being on the hook for $14 million for the project.
The nearly century-old plat map that gave two county commissioners pause.
At the Wednesday workshop, all commissioners praised the Hi Hat project. But in their no-vote, both Knight and Neunder cited a 100-year old county plat map that planned for an extension of Bee Ridge through the middle of what would be the Hi Hat Ranch development. Neunder said he did not become aware of the plat issue until the day before the workshop.
Joe Neunder: This is something I’m not comfortable with. Given the timing of it—given the nature that now it’s a legal issue, which our applicant mentioned—that this could be a legal issue, even if it wasn’t the words were spoken—that this could transfer into a legal arena. I want to be very cautious, because it was also said here that we represent 470,000 taxpayers of Sarasota County, which is in fact true. Each and every one of us do. And so, always protecting the public interest in the area of litigation or potential litigation, or if no litigation, still crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s is important to me.
JW: Jim Turner, a lawyer and offspring of the farming family that is behind the mega-development, said the tax revenues generated by Hi Hat Ranch will by far outpace infrastructure costs. He said the developers agreed to pay $80 million worth of road work, and that they committed to not reopening negotiations later.
Jim Turner
Jim Turner: Neighborhood advocates frequently argue that infrastructure should come before development. This is one of those rare examples that, through this agreement, we are going to be doing that. We are going to be working to four-lane Fruitville. We’re not going to four-lane it, but we’re going to provide the right of way so that it might be four-laned, concurrent with or in advance of development on Fruitville. We’re going to contribute to the widening process on Bee Ridge to deal with an existing problem—not a problem of our making, an existing problem—but that will also help facilitate further development on the Bee Ridge corridor. We think that’s important.
JW: The commissioners did not disappoint Turner.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
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